Some Homework for the Extended Weekend

Between Wednesday the 14th, and Wednesday the 21st, you'll have many opportunities to carve out an hour and dedicate it to a radio broadcast from the University of Utah's KUER program, Radio West.

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kuer/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1456544

At some point before the next class session, click on the link, listen to this program, and write down your reactions as the moderator and guest, Bill Bishop, discuss some trends in American and Global culture.

Today we have many choices about where we live and work, and what we watch, hear, or read. With nearly unlimited access to information on TV or the Web, do we get an understanding of what different people think, or do we tend to see images of ourselves reflected back at us in different forms? This radio interview will bring up many ideas that we will go on to cover in Comm 1500 in more detail. While you listen, consider some of our ideas we discussed last class:

• Who sent this message?
• What values or points-of-view are represented by the moderator, the guest, the listeners calling in? What values or points-of-view are omitted?
• How would other people, different from me, understand these ideas?
• What are some possible reasons this radio program was broadcast?

Write down your thoughts, your ideas of what you thought was interesting, or what needed more explanation. How would you add to their view of history, or to their discussions of rural living compared to urban living? How have your own life experiences been similar to, or different from, the discussion of the guests and callers. Finally, what might the cultural changes discussed in the program mean for the country? How might we all be impacted in the future?

You can post your ideas here, or on your own blog, or bring a few notes to class for discussion.

Put down the phone, game controller, and e-mail.

Take an hour, relax, and listen.